That night I worked quite late preparing a very complete chart, showing the location of all our batteries on the map, their radio call codes and a miniature picture of each battery’s panels. I knew that the batteries would soon be on the move, and my scheme of adjustment had for its object the ability to call any battery which had halted temporarily, whether its location was permanent or not. I got on the field about eight o’clock the next morning and walked over to the Operations Room of the 104th Squadron to find my pilot, who, for the purposes of this story, we will call “Lieutenant Greenhorn.” Inside the hut I found a tall, slender, effeminate looking chap talking to Britton Polly. I was unnoticed by either. The lad was inquiring as to this new guy, Haslett, who was supposed to fly with him at nine o’clock. I heard him tell Polly that as it was his first trip over the lines he demanded an old and experienced observer to take him over. Since he didn’t know me, he said, and had never seen me, he would rather have one of his own squadron go over with him, as he would have more confidence in some one whose experience he knew. Polly, who was a sort of hardboiled war horse, told him that he wouldn’t find any observers in the American Service who were more experienced than Haslett and that he had better take me while the taking was good. After “Greenhorn” left I had a good laugh over the matter with Polly and then I followed the lad to his room, went in, and disclosed my identity. He was noticeably nervous and made me a confession that he had had very little flying and that he really had no business being at the Front; and, as this was his first trip over, he didn’t want to stay long and wanted to know how it felt to be up there, and what to do when he was attacked, and what to do when the enemy anti-aircraft artillery shot him, what to do if his motor failed him over the lines, and a lot of such odd and foolish questions. My experience with Phil Schnurr on his first flight made me leary. I didn’t object to taking a man over the lines for the first time so long as he knew how to fly well, but when a man did not even have confidence in his ability to fly—well, it was a very different matter. I was not seeking any thrills—observing had become a business with me, so I felt very much like refusing to fly with him, but on afterthought it came to me that perhaps this lad was not such a bad sort after all and maybe it was just his modesty and timidity that caused him to talk so disparagingly of his ability. At any rate, if he was going over, for his own good I would take a chance and try to start him right. I proceeded with a story something like this (the same that I told all the new pilots I ever took over the lines for their first trip):